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Published: November 10th 2006
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The Deathmobile
a.k.a. un auto colectivo, the sight of my lastest near-death experience In my mad attempt to fit as much into my Peruvian trip as I could, I left my tour of the Islas Ballestas in the morning to make the three-hour trip down to Nasca to fly over the famous Líneas de Nasca and then go another seven hours back up to Lima. The lines were of course interesting, but one aspect of the trip that was even more--we'll say--exciting was the trip down to Nasca itself.
After grabbing a collective taxi out to a major highway, I caught a one-hour bus down to the city of Ica where I was told (by the travel agency) that the best way to get to the airport in Nasca was to take an auto colectivo, basically a beat-up old van/bus that takes people somewhere for cheap. I had been so upset the day before because I bought a bus ticket when I first got into Lima and ended up buying a ticket on the "tourist bus" (Cruz del Sur) Pisco because I didn't know any better. It was full of French and Germans and serve food, had pleasant music, nice seats . . . and cost about four times the price of a
Dinner
A nice, steaming plate of intenstines, potato, hot sauces, and mustard, made to order right in the street. Actually, I'm not lying, it was pretty good. regular bus. The whole time I was fuming over not getting the "real" Peruvian experience of being on a hot, smelly bus, etc. Well, I got my chance with my auto colectivo on the way to Nasca.
First off, I don't think I've ever shared transport with live poultry before, so that was a new experience. Not bad, just new. Graps at the steering wheel was not instilling much confidence in me from the get-go seeing as he had to have been at least 70 years old. He had several very troubling habits that I had the pleasure of getting to know throughout the course of our journey. The first thing I noticed right away was that he (I think) purposely drove as fast as he could through urban zones. I never thought that I would repeat the thoughts "We are going to die in a fiery crash" or "We are going to kill that pedestrian/cyclist/group of schoolchildren" so many times in just two and a half hours time. His technic was to give whatever may have been in front of us a quick courtesty honk before completely running them off the road. Passing was even worst, made far
Economy class
This poor little lamb rode almost the entire way back to Lima, stored underneath the bus in the luggage compartment. I could hear it "bahhing" the whole way back. more worse by the fact that I was sitting in the center of the first row of seats, so I got a grand view of everything. His favorite was to try to pass a huge semi-truck right as we were entering a tight curve. That made for much fun. The only part perhaps more perplexing of the entire speeding-through-curvy-obstacle-filled-areas thing was that once we reached the vast, straight emptiness of the desert, he slowed down to about half speed, sometimes even less. Perhaps un-making up for gained time?
Another thing that I notice about my friend at the wheel that, while he had a seat belt laying across his cross which he kept fumbling with the entire trip, he never actually bothered to buckle it in. (It was sort of like the police in Lima having bullets but no guns.) He had also taken an affinity to looking down at his crotch for several seconds after pulling up within a meter of a huge semi while on curvy mountain roads. One of the most troubling things however was when, just as we were about to entire a tunnel with a little church right outside of the entrance, I saw
him cross himself. I wasn't sure whether it was because we had just passed a church or because we were entering into a the narrowest one-lane tunnel I've ever seen with non-functioning headlines.
Having escape from that hypothetical fatal situation, we suddenly found ourselves flying down the curviest mountain road I've ever seen in my entire life. Let's just say, I'm not Catholic, but I cross myself anyway just in case. At one point, even the old indian ladies in the back(who usually remain motionless and silent) were getting riled up and started yelling things like, "Slow down!" and "You're going to kill us all, you crazy old man!" Despite all odds (this makes my sixth or so near-death experience for my trip), we actually arrived in Nasca, and, after kissing the ground a bit, I got a taxi out to the airport to take a flight over the famous Nasca lines.
The Líneas de Nasca are ancient figures produced in the southern deserts of Peru by the Nasca civilization between 200 B.C. and 600 A.D. Seen from the ground, there's basically nothing to see, simply a few white lines in the dirt created by removing about 20
cm of peebles coated in iron oxide (thus contrasting the white lines against the gray ground). However, from the air, you can see various designs up to 270 m long expanding over an area of 200 square meters of desert. High above the ground, figures such as a monkey, dog, whale, spider, condor, hummingbird, hands, and geometrical shapes appear. This all leads to the question: why would anyone build these enormous drawings when they would never see what they actually looked like? Truthfully, no one knows. Hence the mystery.
I got a glimpse at the mystery by taking a flight over the lines (still preserved today due to a lack of wind and rain in the region) in a little Cesna airplane. Truthfully, they were much smaller than I had expected them to be, but still amazingly beautiful when you see them. The one shape that seemed to stick out as different from the rest was what has been dubbed "the astronaut." While the other shapes are mostly straight geometrical lines and represent natural animals, plants, and objects, "the astronaut" seems to be more like a cartoonish dude with a smilie face waving at you. Also, it's built into
the slope of a hill rather than flat ground like the rest. Perhaps some sort of ancient practical joke. If you'd like to see some better pictures of the lines and a bit more info, check out the following link: http://www.crystalinks.com/nasca.html.
After my sobrevuelo over the lines, I made it back to the local bus station, ate a nice little plate of intestines, potato, hot sauce, and mustard, and then got on my way back to Lima. It was a crazy, long day of traveling and tours when you consider I started in the morning in Pisco. In all, I was on 11 different vehicles of 7 different types (2 vans, 1 boat, 1 taxi colectivo, 2 buses, 1 auto colectivo, 3 taxis, and 1 Cesna airplane).
And tomorrow, onwards and upwards to Costa Rica!
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hello
i dream of visiting peru and read ur travel blog it s absolutely great!good luck and right some more as u are quite gifted in this